The only movie reviews you need

Friday, August 25, 2017

Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson make quite the "Odd Couple" in director Patrick Hughes' high octane, no-holds-barred buddy action-comedy 'The Hitman's Bodyguard,' a movie in which a foul-mouthed Salma Hayek outshined (and possibly out-killed) both. Part Quentin Tarantino and part Shane Black, THB is all fun and a reason why I love blood-soaked action comedies that don't take themselves too seriously.

Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former CIA agent-turned-private bodyguard, excuse me, "protection agent" who's the best in the business. In fact, he's "Triple-A" certified and had never lost a client, until he did which caused his impeccable reputation and career to take a steep nose-dive. When Interpol was compromised in its efforts to escort Samuel L's assassin, Darius Kincaid, to testify against Gary Oldman's notorious dictator of Belarus at the International Court of Justice for "Crimes Against Humanity" (massacring civilians), Bryce was given a second chance for redemption and to regain his lost standing by an ex who was the lone surviving Interpol agent. Bryce must safely deliver Kincaid while hitmen galore working for Oldman declare open season on them. Can they survive?

After 'Deadpool,' it's refreshing to see Reynolds take on a more serious, straight-laced role while Samuel L gets to have most of the fun. The chemistry between them is great, as is Salma Hayek, whom believe me you do not want to mess with. But THB is not just your typical mindless mayhem, oh no. It's also a tender romance (between Darius and Hayek's Sonia) set to classic love songs. So it's really the perfect date movie if you think about it.

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Few writers had as much of their
works mined for movie adaptation as Stephen King.While the prolific novelist is considered to be
the undisputed reigning “Master of Horror” and deservedly so, with most of his
horror stories (novels and short stories alike) translated into films and
mini-series, two out of three of my favorite adaptions of his extensive
body of work are actually not in the horror genre, ‘Stand by Me’ and ‘The Shawshank
Redemption,’ with ‘The Shining’ being the
exception.I admit I’m not the biggest
Stephen King fan as far as his books are concerned (and I haven’t read most of
them), but there are very few of his movies or TV mini-series I haven’t
seen.So despite the scathing reviews
the critics have levied upon ‘The Dark Tower,’ I wasn’t about to break the
streak.

Okay, so I haven’t read ‘The Dark
Tower’ series either, but I figured that’s not necessarily a bad thing because
I won’t be disappointed if the movie didn’t live up to the books.TDT can be best characterized as a dark
fantasy sci-fi western about Good versus Evil, a recurring theme of Stephen
King’s.In TDT we have multiple worlds
and dimensions, a protagonist anti-hero in Roland Deschain (“The Gunslinger”
played by Idris Elba) who’s sort of a knight in a western, and a soft-spoken
evil wizard (“The Man in Black” portrayed by Matthew McConaughey) with the
unpretentious name of Walter Padick.There’s also the “boy with all the gifts,” 11-year old Jake Chambers
(Tom Taylor) who, as you might have surmised, holds the key to defeating “The Man in Black.”

TDT is a serviceable movie
intended to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but in light of its
disappointing box office numbers over the weekend one can only conclude that
it’s ill-conceived from the start.By
not being faithful to the book and in essentially making it into a YA movie,
the vociferous TDT fans are not happy, but they’re not numerous enough to make
TDT a financial success anyway.OTOH mainstream moviegoers didn't exactly embrace it with open arms either.While TDT was the number 1 movie last weekend,
its $19 million in domestic ticket sales is the lowest of any “weekend box
office winner” all summer.“Serviceable”
just isn’t good enough these days.Grade: B

Simply put, I love women who kick
ass and look good while doing it. It
doesn’t matter if we’re talking about an angsty teen who slays vampires and
monsters (Buffy), wet work-specializing femmes fatales who kill with their
looks as much as their “very particular set of skills” (Sydney Bristow and
Nikita), or comic book superheroines like the recent Wonder Woman played by Gal
Gadot.It should come as no surprise,
then, that Charlize Theron’s noirish Cold War spy actioner, ‘Atomic Blonde,’ is
a “can’t miss” in my book.

Based on the obscure 2012 graphic
novel ‘The Coldest City,’ ‘Atomic Blonde’ (the name itself sounds badass,
doesn’t it?) is set in 1989 Berlin during the last days of the Cold War.Even though the Berlin Wall is about to come
down and a sense of chaotic euphoria is sweeping across the land, the spy game between
the East and West still rages on.After
a British intelligence agent was killed and a list of names of every western
spy (the Holy Grail in spy movies) falls into the hands of the KGB, veteran MI6
trouble-shooter Lorraine Broughton (the Atomic Blonde) is sent to Berlin to recover
it and uncover a suspected double agent in MI6.Yeah, the powers-that-be pretty much dropped her into a Hornets' Nest
with no safety net.

If ‘Atomic Blonde’ reminds you a bit of
John Wick, it’s probably because they’re both directed by David Leitch, whose camerawork
and continuous-shot action sequences virtually set a new standard in action movies
with his brutal and hyper-kinetic style.Like JW, AB is an unstoppable maelstrom of poetic violence when
unleashed, bloody and utterly uncompromising in a world of “kill or be killed.”Punch-stab-kick and repeat.It’s gritty yet also a thing of sheer
beauty.While there is a semblance of a
plot filled with double-crosses and belief-defying twists, it merely provides a
vehicle for Theron to wield her deadly arts and to satiate our thirst for
visceral violence (and a good dose of gratuitous girl-on-girl action too).Move over, Evelyn Salt.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Prolific French filmmaker Luc
Besson brings to the big screen the French sci-fi/action comic "Valerian and Laureline" by
replacing Laureline with a gigantic space station hosting “thousands” of alien
races in ‘Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.'V&TCO1000P is easily Besson’s most
ambitious, sprawling, visually stylish and expensive gamble, I mean project, since ‘The Fifth
Element’ starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich some 20 years ago.Being a fan of T5E I marked this movie on my
“to see” list ever since I initially saw its colorful and swashbuckling trailer packed to
the gills with unique aliens and gee-whiz futurama, but in the deep recess of my mind lurked the
nagging fear that it would turn out to be another ‘Jupiter
Ascending.’Therefore, I took care not
to dial my expectations up too high.

Aside from the fact that I never
read the comic which inspired it, that is perhaps why I enjoyed V&TCO1000P so
much.Major Valerian (Dane DeHann) and
his comely and sassy blonde sidekick Sergeant Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are elite
agents of a special Space Police unit operating out of a giant space station
named “Alpha” which hosts innumerable alien races (think Babylon 5 but much,
much bigger) living in peaceful harmony.A seemingly routine mission to recover a valuable device (a power
converter) on a desert planet thrusts Valerian and Laureline into a web of
deceit and intrigue involving a race of lithe, androgynous and
translucent-skinned aliens.

Critics have faulted
V&TCO1000P mostly for its weak and contrived story but come on, this is a
Luc Besson movie we’re talking about.While the plot isn’t exactly awesome or original for that matter, it is
much more conventional and straightforward than, say,
Besson’s ‘Lucy.’With its campy humor,
wild-eyed fantasy and high-tech Avatar-esque visuals, V&TCO1000P is a
rollicking space opera that’s fun for the whole family.I’ve learned long ago that Luc Besson movies
are visceral experiences; don’t overthink them and just sit back and enjoy the
ride.Oh, and don’t forget the popcorn.Grade: A

The 1940 “Miracle at Dunkirk” is the subject of Christopher Nolan’s latest big budget feature, a vast sweeping WWII epic and passion project from the acclaimed British director best known for the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy and a couple of FX-heavy sci-fi mindbenders that start with an “I,” ‘Inception’ and ‘Interstellar.’In turning an ignominious and unmitigated military disaster resulting from German “shock and awe” (aka Blitzkrieg) lightning warfare that brought France to her knees in a little more than two weeks into a symbol of British defiance, individual heroism and selfless sacrifice, the story of Dunkirk just begs to be re-told (there was a 1958 version apparently which I haven’t seen) to a modern audience who sadly know too little about world history.

The narrative of ‘Dunkirk’ is divided into three distinct but related parts.“The Mole” follows a lowly British PBI (poor bloody infantryman) named Tommy (aren’t they all?) as he attempts to survive repeated Luftwaffe air attacks and reach “Home Sweet Home.”“The Sea” is mostly told from the POV of a British naval officer (Kenneth Branagh) overseeing the evacuation effort and a yachtsman (Mark Rylance) who answered the call to join the hastily assembled fleet of private fishing vessels, yachts and ferry boats sailing toward Dunkirk.Lastly, “The Air” is seen through the eyes of a RAF Spitfire pilot (Tom Hardy) who risks running out of fuel before he can return to base in order to provide air cover for the helpless (“where is the bloody air force?!”) Tommies who can only anxiously peer into the sky at the sound of approaching German bombers.

While the non-linear storytelling and down-in-the-dirt POV are effective in conveying the realism, chaos, fear, heroism and, yes, even cowardice one would expect in the unforgiving crucible of war and make for a harrowing viewing experience, the juxtaposition of the three subplots and the rapidly shifting perspectives achieved through cut scenes in editing prevented the movie from reaching greatness.Even though the three parts did come together at the end (and two of them intersected at another point earlier in the film), it lacked the dramatic impact and emotional resonance of more linear war movies. Nolan shouldn't have given 'Dunkirk' the ‘Memento’ treatment, but do go see it anyway because films such as this should really be watched on the big screen (unless you have a state-of-the-art home theatre system and don't mind the wait) so you can hear and feel the rumbles and reverberations of every explosion deep down in your very bones.Grade: A-

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

The rebooted ‘Planet of the Apes’
trilogy comes to a fitting if somewhat sad conclusion in director Matt Reeves’s
‘War for the Planet of the Apes,’ the follow-up to ‘Dawn of the Planet of the
Apes’ (2011) and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ (2014) which tell the story
of how a human-engineered “simian virus” decimated humanity and made monkeys
and apes the dominant species on earth.A modern take on the POTA franchise of the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s
with prosthetic made-up apes featuring Roddy McDowall (few remember the 2001
Tim Burton remake starring Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter), this new
trilogy combined cutting-edge computer animation with facial mapping (notably
Andy Serkis’s) to give the various apes in the films a hyper-realistic yet
all-too-human quality.

So the (ape) shit finally hits
the fan in WFTPOTA and the war is on.Going by its
action-packed preview trailer one could easily come away with the impression
that the conflict between homo sapiens and apes comes to a head and all hell
breaks loose, but it’s actually quite a bit more complicated and nuanced than that.Without giving away too much of the plot,
suffice it to say that Woody Harrelson’s character (simply referred to as "The Colonel"), inspired by Marlon
Brando’s Colonel Kurtz in ‘Apocalypse Now’ and Caesar’s key nemesis in the
film, didn’t have the luxury of solely focusing on wiping out ape-kind.There’s a bigger picture at work here.

Even more so than the previous
ROTPOTA, Caesar carries the weight of his people’s
deliverance on his tired shoulders while Woody Harrelson’s
“Alpha-Omega” paramilitary faction seeks to enslave and ultimately destroy them.This Caesar isn't one to cross the
Rubicon and challenge the humans in a war of annihilation where only the strongest
survive.Like Jesus, Caesar is more likely to extend
an olive branch to his enemies with turn-the-other-cheek humility and grace,
even if they shove it right back in his face.Is peaceful coexistence between humans and apes even possible?Not if "The Colonel" still draws his last dying breath.Grade: A

Teenagers love scary movies, even
the bad ones.It’s hard to go to a
horror movie nowadays without noticing that a majority of the audience seems to
be 20 or under, and a good portion of that even much younger.Now that I think of it, I was probably one of
them back in the day, since I’ve been a horror aficionado/gore-hound for as
long as I can remember.It’s no surprise,
then, that the folks behind the ill-fated teen-centered horror flick ‘Wish
Upon’ believe they had a built-in audience for their movie.Well, they were dead (excuse the pun) wrong.

‘Wish Upon’ recycles the
well-worn tropes of the “101 ways to die” ‘Final Destination’ franchise, providing
it with a new twist by replacing the Grim Reaper with an evil octagonal
Chinese demon box.This weird and
somewhat creepy music box, as the movie’s young protagonist Clare (Joey King) discovers,
can fulfill all her adolescent dreams, such as literally causing the mean girl tormenting
her in high school to rot and making the boy whom she secretly crushes on dump
his hotter girlfriend and fall for her.However, every wish has a price and Clare comes to the belated realization
that her shallow and selfish desires are better left unfulfilled as they could
very well consign her soul to damnation.

‘Wish Upon’ is a dumbed-down ‘The
Box’ without the moral dilemma or surreal artsy trappings, a horror-lite
clearly aimed at the 25-and-under demographic.It’s a rather vacuous and gimmicky movie, but hardly an unexpected one considering
such films’ relatively low budget.I’m
sure its disappointment at the BO will not discourage producers from making similar movies in the future, but I will have to try a bit harder steering clear of
them though I fear I may not be able to resist ‘Happy Death Day.’ I’m so easy.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Our friendly neighborhood
web-slinger returns to the big screen once again in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’
the second reboot and third Spidey film franchise in the last 15 years.The first trilogy from ‘Evil Dead’
writer/producer/director Sam Raimi starring Tobey Maguire was an unqualified
success even if the last film fizzled out, but the reboot with Andrew Garfield
as the wise-cracking superhero disappointed both critically and commercially
and was canceled after just two installments.This prompted Sony Pictures, which owns the rights to the title as long
as they keep rebooting it every 10 years or so, to collaborate with Marvel
Studios and properly integrate Spider-Man into the rich and highly successful
MCU.It turned out to be one of the best
decisions Sony ever made (are you listening, ‘Fantastic Four’ rights owner 20th
Century Fox?).

After his well-received debut in
‘Captain America: Civil War,’ Tom Holland takes over the mantle in the brand
spanking new franchise as the youngest Spider-Man to date.Holland’s Peter Parker is only a geeky
15-year old navigating through the minefields of adolescence and high school
like any other teenager, except he’s not your typical high school
sophomore.After his brief stint as a
probationary Avenger on “Team Iron Man” in ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ Peter
Parker is eager to further develop his crime-fighting skills on the not-so-mean
streets of Queens, New York, but his mentor Iron Man just told him to “settle
down and get back to school, kid.”It’s
like giving a kid his first taste of ice-cream and then taking it away.Not to be discouraged, Spider-Man keeps
patrolling the neighborhood and is finally rewarded for his perseverance when
he stumbles upon the arms-dealing schemes of the Vulture (Michael Keaton) and
his henchmen, who came across some cool Chitauri tech while pulling clean-up
duty after the Battle of New York in the first Avengers movie until Tony
Stark’s Department of Damage Control rudely stepped in and took over
jurisdiction.

The verdict is in.‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ is a refreshing take
on my favorite Marvel superhero.It is
entertaining, fun and a highly promising start to a Spider-Man franchise that
had gone stale for so long.Tom Holland
(who first opened my eyes in this moving film: The Impossible) is great and bestows Peter Parker version
3.0 with a wide-eyed wonder and youthful exuberance we haven’t seen to this
extent before.He’s also terrible at
keeping his identity a secret, as you’ll see throughout the movie (and the last line in the movie is classic).But let’s cut the kid some slack shall we?He’s new at this superhero gig.Grade: A

In the genre of family-friendly
CGI animated movies, the ‘Despicable Me’ franchise is easily among the most
beloved and successful. The four films released to date (including the
‘Minions’ spin-off) have already garnered over $3 billion worldwide, making it
one of the most lucrative animated franchises of all time.So what gives DM its widespread appeal?The legion of unintelligible but lovable
Twinkie-like minions, surely, but let’s not give the other characters short
shrift because DM is a family affair with Gru, Lucy and the three girls who
give the franchise its heart.

DM3 sees villain-turned-agent Gru
(Steve Carell, voiced by that is) foil the pink diamond-thieving ‘80s
supervillain Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker), only to be fired by the new head of
the Anti-Villain League for failing to apprehend him.Along with Lucy (Kristen Wiig), who resigned
A-VL in protest as a show of solidarity, and his three adopted girls, Gru visits his
long-lost twin brother in the kingdom of Freedonia and is tempted to return to the life of
supervillainy he thought he left behind until Bratt re-enters the picture and successfully steals the
pink diamond to power his giant robot for the purpose of destroying Hollywood
in revenge for canceling his ‘80’s TV show.And that, my dear readers, is the story of DM3 in a rather compact
nutshell.

I won't lie to you.The “laws of diminishing
returns” is at work in DM3 here.The story
isn’t all that great and the series is suffering a bit of fatigue.But that’s to be expected and perhaps
unavoidable in the final analysis.What’s important is that DM3 should give fans of the DM franchise what
they wanted and keep them happy, and it did that admirably well considering the
fact that it made nearly $450 million worldwide after only its second
weekend.As for me personally, what I particularly
liked about DM3 are its throwback ‘80s soundtrack and
Japanese-inspired Giant Robot mayhem.Grade: B

Monday, July 3, 2017

Like many of you, I've been a big fan of British director Edgar Wright ever since his
breakthrough zomedy hit ‘Shaun of the Dead’ back in 2004.His two follow-ups in the so-called “Three
Flavours Cornetto Trilogy,” the buddy-cop shoot-em’-up action-comedy ‘Hot Fuzz’
(2007) and end-of-the-world bodysnatcher apocalyptic comedy ‘The World’s End’ (2013)
were also great, even if SOTD is still considered to be the best among
them.Likewise, his movie adaptation of
the graphic novel ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World' (2010) was brilliant if
underappreciated.I was therefore
disappointed when he was attached to direct the ‘Ant-Man’ movie, then abruptly
left due to “creative differences.”No
matter, because as his latest film ‘Baby Driver’ has shown, the 43-year old Wright is
better off writing original material than having his quirky genius crimped by a
major studio like Marvel anyway.

Set in Atlanta (like
last year’s ‘Triple 9’ reviewed here: 999), BD dispensed with Wright’s long-time British
partners-in-crime Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in favor of a much more American
cast boasting some major league talent in the forms of Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and a couple of Jon’s (Hamm and Bernthal).The film also features two young newcomers in
baby-faced Ansel Elgort and the hot-to-trot Eiza González and gave them a
chance to shine, the former as a reluctant getaway driver with the mad skills and cool nerves of a NASCAR driver and the latter as the saucy and spicy Latin “Bonnie”
to Jon Hamm’s Clyde.

While BD’s plot isn’t exactly new
being a variation of the “decent fellow who wants to leave his life of crime
behind but finds it easier said than done” theme, Wright managed to give it a fresh
spin with its unique protagonist and colorful cast of criminals. In many ways this movie is also Wright's homage to heist movies, rom-coms and funky soul music from the 60's and 70's.Not only does BD work as an entertaining cops-and-robbers
flick but also a romance with plenty of heart and soul (music), as Wright
proves once again that he has a singular talent for blending comedy with humanity and a healthy dose of gratuitous
R-rated violence.I love
it.Grade: A

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Despite its obvious flaws I quite
enjoyed last year’s ‘The Shallows,’ a movie about a cat-and-mouse game between
a Great White Predator and Blake Lively’s hapless surfer-in-peril (reviewed
here: Blake Lively kicks Shark Butt), so when the new Jaws-inspired movie ’47 Meters Down’ came under my
radar I just knew I had to see it.One blurb
even called it “the best shark film since Jaws,” so you’ll have to forgive me
for jumping the shark, I mean into my local mega-plex to see it the first
change I got.

The basic plot of 47MD is bloodily
simple.Easy-on-the-eyes siblings Kate
and Lisa (Aussie actress Claire Holt and singer/actress Mandy Moore) go on
vacay in Mexico to help the latter get over her recent
separation with her boyfriend, who had the gall to break up with her because he considered her “boring.”Needing to send her ex-BF
a “FU, you don’t know what you’re missing” and reasoning that “I’ll be enclosed in
a sturdy steel cage and people did it all the time, so what could possibly go wrong?", Lisa (who does seem to be a tame
and risk-averse gal in the movie) threw caution into the wind and reluctantly
allowed her wilder and more spontaneous little sis Kate to talk her into going on a cage dive in shark-infested waters after
a couple of local young eligible bachelors they met at a bar the previous night suggested it.What could possibly go wrong?The law of “Murphy” of course.

I was disappointed.After sitting through a third of the movie
following the sisters around with all their girl-talk and issues before they become shark bait, the big payoff I expected never
materialized.Unlike ‘The Shallows,’ the
tension and suspense failed to build-up to a level that kept me at the edge of
my seat, and the sense of danger and peril were sorely lacking in this
film.47MD may be more realistic in its
depiction of real-life shark encounters wherein a survivor lived to tell the
Shark tale, but sometimes movies have to ratchet it up a few notches and
over-dramatize things to keep us interested even if every marine biologist
tells us that sharks aren’t the aggressive, human-chomping monsters pop culture
made them out to be.Even the original
‘Jaws’ went pretty far, right?And I
was shaking my head in utter disbelief when I saw the (spoiler ahead) faux ending sequence in which Lisa fought off
tooth-and-nail the shark that had her firmly in its grips by ripping one of its
eyes out, but then I read this hard-to-believe story: How to Survive a Shark Attack.Regardless, I still liked the badass, don’t
mess with Blake Lively ending of ‘The Shallows’ much better.Sorry, reality is just soooo boring.

I admit I am a bit of a sucker for
low-budget indie horror and have, as you might expect, seen my share of both good ones and bad.For every ‘Paranormal
Activity’ and ‘Get Out,’ there is an ‘As Above, So Below’ and ‘Ouija.’There are movies that were critically maligned
that I somehow enjoyed, such as the unabashedly exploitative ‘The Purge,’ and ones that critics raved about
that I thought aren't very good, like the highly overrated ‘It Follows.’The latest such movie to get a wide release
is A24’s ‘It Comes at Night’ which falls somewhere in between being just so-so.

‘It Comes at Night’ (don't ask me what comes at night because I still can't figure it out) can best be
characterized as post-apocalyptic survival psychological suspense horror (now
that’s a mouthful).A family of three comprising
of a father, mother and their teenage son (played by Joel Edgerton, Carmen
Ejogo and Kelvin Harrison Jr.) live in a secluded house in the woods of
an unspecified location in America.A plague or disease of unknown origin has ravaged
the world outside, and the characters’ (and by extension the audience’s)
situation awareness is so limited that all we know is what’s happening in the "here and
now. " When another family of three
including a little boy seeks their aid and appeals to their humanity for
shelter, they agree to take in the family for mutual support and companionship.
However, even sympathetic gestures such as this can lead to
tragedy and disaster in the end.

While this glacially paced movie is
fairly well written and solidly acted, it is not an easy film to watch.Not only is ‘It Comes at Night’ bleak,
depressing and devoid of hope even by post-apocalyptic standards, its dark and
tragic ending defies Hollywood conventions and leaves a bitter taste in our
mouths. Be forewarned. All ye who enter this movie
abandon hope because there is none to be found.

Universal Studio’s much
ballyhooed “Dark Universe” appeared to be off to an inauspicious start in
producer/director Alex Kurtzman’s ‘The Mummy,’ the latest incarnation (or is it
reincarnation) of one of Hollywood’s classic monsters harking back to the days
of Boris Karloff.Lambasted by critics
and shunned by moviegoers, ‘The Mummy’ bombed with a disappointing domestic
take of $32 million on opening week and suffered a steep 60 percent drop over
the past weekend.The final nail seems
to have been driven into the $125 million dollar movie’s coffin before you can ask
“What the hell happened?”Well, something
funny, that’s what. With the savvy Tom
Cruise at the helm, ‘The Mummy’ proved to be a mega-blockbuster hit overseas, particularly
in China.The film has now grossed nearly
$240 million worldwide, of which less than $50 million came out of the North
American market. Just let that sink in for a minute.What would Hollywood do without the Chinese?

The critics are right
though.The story (credited to Kurtzman,
Jon Spaihts and Jenny Lumet) is pretty
bad.Cruise plays Nick Morton, a sleazy ex-Special
Forces sergeant and shameless tomb raider who had no qualms selling priceless
artifacts that belong in museums on the black market for personal gain.When he accidentally awakened the mummy of Ahmanet
(Sofia Boutella), an Egyptian princess who sold her soul to Set and murdered
her own family for the throne but was thwarted in her quest to become queen of
Egypt, Morton must draw upon every ounce of his wits and ability in order to
prevent worldwide catastrophe with the help of archeologist and out of central casting cookie-cutter blond
sidekick Jenny Halsey (Anabelle Wallis).

The main problem with ‘The Mummy’
isn’t that it’s unwatchable.The problem
is that it cannot be judged on its own merits without comparing it to the
1999 version directed by Stephen Sommers starring Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz
and John Hannah.While that movie was no
masterpiece by any stretch, it was fun and the perfect Indiana Jones-inspired
popcorn flick. By contrast, this latest
is a weak effort that’s a sloppy slapdash mish mash of various influences, and
the film suffered for it stylistically and tonally. I mean, Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, really?Also,
Cruise and Wallis lacked the sheer on-screen chemistry of Frasier and Weisz.If anything, this film brings to mind another
expensive and messy failure, 'Van Helsing,' whose director happened to be the same
guy who directed the 1999 version.

Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Superhero moviedom gets a good
dose of “Girl Power” in DC Extended Universe’s ‘Wonder Woman,’ director Patty
Jenkin’s highly anticipated and “trail-blazing” film featuring a superheroine
in a genre overrepresented by men (just ask yourself, how many such movies end
with the suffix “Man”?).Much
hand-wringing and no small amount of feminist drama, including a controversy
over WW’s shaved armpit (hairy armpit "controversy"), preceded the
movie’s release as Hollywood held its collective breath to see if the world is
finally ready to embrace and, more importantly, financially reward a movie with
a female headliner.

Having made more than $100
million over its first weekend in North America and twice that globally, we can
all now breathe a sigh of relief.Not
that there’s really any doubt, since WW was well-received and a
bright spot in 2016’s ‘Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (reviewed here: Bats vs Supes: Dawn of Justice),
her very first appearance in the DCEU.Israeli stunner "what a Gal!" Gadot was nothing less than gorgeous as the
Amazonian Goddess Diana Prince, the greatest warrior princess on an invisible island full
of Xenas.After British pilot and spy Steve
Trevor (Chris Pine) unwelcomely crash lands on her secluded island
paradise, she joins him and embarks on a mission outside her sheltered world to
stop Ares (as in the God of War) and put an end to man’s greatest folly, which
happens to be World War I at the time.

Relying on familiar storytelling tropes
such as the opening scene in which an old war photograph from Bruce Wayne
triggers her story via flashback, WW’s origin is a nostalgic affair reminiscent
of the story of another idealistic red, white and blue-clad do-gooder who
fought Germans during the last century in ‘Captain America: The First Avenger.’Partly set in London during the early 20th Century, WW also provides some levity in the way of a British comedy of manners. And even though Zack Snyder stepped aside as director this time his influence is still evident, like the 300-esque visual style and jerky slow motion action scenes throughout the movie.

Monday, May 22, 2017

As an aficionado of just about anything
'Alien,' Ridley Scott’s latest film in the 38-year old franchise, ‘Alien:
Covenant,’ may be my most anticipated movie of 2017.Five years after 2012's 'Prometheus,' which I
thought was pretty darn good (so sue me) even if it had too much "Space Jockey" (Engineer) and
too little Alien, a new installment is long overdue as far as I'm concerned.And the gorier the better!

‘Alien: Covenant’ takes place in
2104, about 10 years after the events which expired, I mean transpired in
‘Prometheus.’Centering on the crew of
the space ship “Covenant” in cryogenic stasis entasked with transporting 2,000 settlers
to a habitable planet dubbed Origae-6, only to be rudely awakened prematurely to
deal with an on-board crisis before responding to a garbled and mysterious
transmission from an unknown planet nearby which just so
happened to be suitable for human habitation without the need for terra-forming. Sounds familiar? Needless to say, they encounter hostile Xenomorphs
of various types on the planet.

While ‘Alien: Covenant’ is
undeniably a direct sequel to the divisive ‘Prometheus,’ it can also be considered to be a prequel
to ‘Alien’ and hews more closely to the 1979 original than perhaps any of the
other films in the official Alien canon.With deadly Xenomorphs skittering around the confined corridors of
Covenant preying on soft fleshy things that die messily, the
claustrophobia-induced anxieties and nail-biting suspense of that original Ridley Scott film
are rekindled.It's also perhaps by no
accident that the movie’s heroine, Daniels "Dany" Branson (Katherine Waterston, whose pedigree is impeccable given her lineage), somewhat resembled
the young Ellen Ripley.Grade: A-

Poor Guy Ritchie.The ex-hubby of Madonna and director of
entertaining British Jason Statham‑starring crime capers such as ‘Lock, Stock
and Two Smoking Barrels’ and ‘Snatch’ just can’t catch a break.Less than two years removed from his
unenthusiastically received big-screen adaptation of the campy ‘60’s spy series
‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ (reviewed here: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), his latest feature, the $175
million sword-and-sorcery epic ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,’ only managed to fall on
Excalibur instead and disembowel itself at the box office. Ouch.

Intended as the first entry in a
new King Arthur/Knights of the Round Table franchise (now in doubt undoubtedly),
KA:LotS retells the story of Arthur’s (Charlie Hunnam) origin, starting from
his father King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) being betrayed by his power-hungry
and treacherous uncle Vortigern (Jude Law) to his eventual restoration to the
throne.The story is a familiar one, albeit
updated with the latest visual effects, a contemporary sensibility and the quippy
rapid-fire dialogue that has become a trademark of Guy Ritchie movies.

It’s not difficult to see why
KA:LotS crashed and burned so badly both critically and commercially.This latest retelling of one of our most
cherished legends is a decidedly messy affair that’s hard to digest.While boasting a talented cast, most of whom
did okay, the film is pretty much “all sound and fury, signifying nothing” while
lacking substance with an over-abundance of action.Shamelessly riding the coat-tails of HBO’s ‘Game of
Thrones’ visually and stylistically, KA:LotS seems content to dish out one overblown set-piece
action sequence after another, never slowing down enough to show that it cares about the characters
or ponder their significance.

The latest movie about America’s
tragic, never-ending war in the Middle East is ‘The Wall,’ a low-budget affair
directed by Doug Liman (‘The Bourne Identity,’ ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘Edge of
Tomorrow’).With a mere budget of
$3 million and a cast of two, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and WWE superstar John Cena,
‘The Wall’ is at first glance intriguing but ultimately an unsatisfying war movie that
takes a lo-fi minimalist approach.

Johnson and Cena play sergeants
Allen Isaac and Shane Matthews, a US Army sniper team sent to investigate a
pipeline construction site that’s “gone dark” in the middle-of-nowhere desert
wasteland of post-war Iraq.After
patiently observing the now quiet kill zone where the private contractors were
killed for nearly 24 hours, the pair broke cover in order to recover equipment
only to find themselves pinned down by an unseen enemy, a cunning and ruthless
Iraqi sniper who takes particular pleasure in playing mind games with his
hapless victims (namely Isaac).The only thing separating Isaac and his sadistic never-seen adversary is a length
of crumbling brick wall, which provides the setting for virtually the film’s
entire length.

Even though I’m as much a fan of do-or-die
cat-and-mouse sniper duels as anyone (I thought ‘Enemy at the Gates’ was
good and enjoyed ‘American Sniper’ despite its blatant rah-rah jingoism), ‘The Wall’ just didn’t hold my
attention or interest long enough.In the
wake of his bravura performance in ‘Nocturnal Animals,’ Johnson proved once
again that he can act (although Cena was pretty much a non-factor after he ran
out and got shot), but the movie’s limited by an overly thin and sparse script
that would have trouble holding our attention for 60 minutes, much less its
81-minute running time.Grade: C-

Monday, May 8, 2017

2014’s geektastic ‘Guardians of
the Galaxy’ (reviewed here: GotG) is an excessively fun and humorous
galaxy-spanning romp in the MCU and a bona fide smash hit which exceeded all
expectations at the worldwide box office, so it comes as little surprise that
the follow-up would garner inflated expectations.With such a tough act to follow, can
writer/director James Gunn and company deliver and satisfy the legions of comic
book fans renowned for their hard-to-pleaseness?Inquiring minds want to know.

‘Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume
2’ continues the wild and wacky misadventures of our unlikely band of privateers-for-hire
comprised of Peter Quill aka Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Rocket
Raccoon and a pint-sized “I am” Groot, who can’t seem to shake trouble wherever
they go.After narrowly escaping the
wrath of a gold-painted former employer, the motley crew of misfits are called
upon to save the galaxy yet again, this time from none other than (spoiler
ahead) Peter’s long-lost father Ego (Kurt Russell), who’s a god-like sentient
living planet of all things.

Like the original, GotG2 is a
candy-coated rollicking rollercoaster ride of a movie, but this time with family
dysfunction at its core.Not only did Star-Lord
have a misty reunion with the dad he never knew, green-skinned Gamora was also reunited
with her sister Nebula, who wanted to kill her because she blamed Gamora for
what their cruel dad Thanos did to her by being “too good” in their sibling
rivalries.But the real hero in the
movie is the rough-around-the-edges Ravager leader with the blue skin and red
Mohawk, Yondu (Michael Rooker), who showed us in the end what being a true father
is all about.

Every so often, a film aims to be
thought-provoking and to make some kind of eye-opening social commentary about the
human condition but somehow falls flat and fails to connect with the audience
in a big way.I’m sure this was not what
the producers and director James Ponsoldt had in mind when they tackled the challenge
of adapting Dave Eggers’ bestselling novel ‘The Circle,’ a cautionary tale
about letting too much information into our lives and becoming too dependent on
social networks, onto the big screen.

The story of a young woman
(played by Emma Watson) who joins a chic Google-esque tech firm in Silicon
Valley but increasingly finds herself the unwilling member of a cult of
technology which happily and unquestioningly sacrifices individuality for the “greater good” of
openness and full transparency, ‘The Circle’ is meant to sound an alarm and provoke debate on
how technology is encroaching into our personal freedom and sovereignty.Yet despite game performances from Watson and
Tom Hanks, the latter as the charismatic and fatherly founder of ‘The Circle’ with all his
homespun wisdom, the film never manages to find its footing as either suspense
thriller or social satire.

While Eggers’ novel is powerful
and effective, a true spiritual successor of dystopian classics such as George Orwell’s
‘1984’ and Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World,’ this movie is ill-conceived from
the very start.‘The Circle’ should
serve as a cautionary tale to Hollywood that not all bestselling books can
be transplanted into feature films.Grade: C-

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Mamoru Oshii’s animated feature
‘Ghost in the Shell’ is considered to be essential viewing and one of the
defining anime films of all time.Not
having read Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga pre-dating it, this 1995 movie was my
first entry into the futuristic cyberpunk universe depicted in the popular anime
franchise which also includes ‘GitS: Innocence,’ ‘GitS: Stand Alone Complex,’ ‘GitS Stand Alone
Complex: Solid State Society,’ ‘GitS S.A.C. 2nd GIG,’ ‘GitS: Arise’ and ‘GitS: The Rising’ (aka
‘The New Movie’).So when I heard that GitS
is being made into a live action movie starring Scarlett Johansson, it became
one of my must-see movies of 2017.

ScarJo (in a somewhat stiff
performance, but that's hardly her fault) takes on the role of GitS’s main
protagonist, Major Mira Killian aka Motoko Kusanagi, the cybernetically enhanced team leader of the
highly secretive “Public Security Section 9,” a shadowy black-ops department of
the Japanese government.When a Hanka
Robotics meeting was hit by unknown assailants and a hacked killer Geisha
robot (cool!), the Major and her team are assigned to go after the mastermind behind the
attack, an elusive and mysterious cyber-criminal puppet-master known as
Kuze.As Killian closes in on Kuze, she
comes to the increasing realization that things are not as she’s led to believe and begins to question her very own identity.

Mixing the visual style of ‘Blade
Runner’ with the hyper-kinetic choreography of ‘The Matrix,’ GitS has a lot going for it in
the eye-candy department. While I can overlook
the “white-washing” in casting ScarJo as a Japanese heroine and
switching to a “nude” Thermoptic bodysuit, the screenplay is unoriginal and little more than a recycled neo-noir Philip K. Dick-sian conspiracy plot in which
the protagonist turns against her masters along the lines of ‘Minority Report’
and ‘Total Recall.’ Nonetheless, fans of GitS should find just enough to recommend here (Spider Tank, cool!) despite its obvious flaws.

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de
Villenueve’s popular romantic fairy tale ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is updated for
the umpteenth time in Disney’s latest live action treatment starring Emma
Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans and Josh Gad.With its “beauty is only skin deep” and “true beauty comes from within”
theme and counterpoint to fairy tales like ‘Snow White,’ ‘Cinderella’ and
‘Sleeping Beauty,’ in which the beauty and the handsome prince live happily
ever after, it’s easy to see why this fable possesses such a timeless appeal,
but few people may be aware that this tale was borne out of social-economic
necessity in its time and place, 18th Century France, an era when
young women of marriageable age (“beauties”) form alliances with men of wealth
and good standing but lacking in appearance (“beasts”) out of convenience
rather than love as a matter of course.

You should be familiar with the
story by now.A witch turns a handsome
young prince (Dan Stevens) into an unsightly beast after he refused her shelter
because of her looks (she’s an enchantress who appeared to him in the guise of
an ugly old hag as a test), along with his servants whom she transforms into
various mundane household objects.To
break the curse, the princely beast must learn to love another and in turn earn her love in return
before the last petal of a rose falls off.To make a long story short, he manages to do so with a headstrong and
bookish young woman uninterested in love named Belle (Emma Watson) in the
nick of time despite various obstacles, not the least of
which was the rakishly handsome but dastardly villain Gaston (Luke Evans).

Glossy, exuberant and with charm
to spare, BatB is another joyous and wonderful Disney offering that’s nigh impossible
not to like.Watson is quite simply
radiant, and the fact that virtually all the songs in the film are instantly recognizable
and familiar didn't hurt either, making
BatB a highly accessible musical for all ages.With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that this latest incarnation of the classic
had already earned its place as the highest grossing live-action musical of all
time.

Friday, March 24, 2017

It's been a long time since I posted one of these short-but-sweet triple headers. Since I'll be on vacation out of the country for the next two weeks cinema-free, I thought I'd get a quick one in while I can.

Life on Mars: A team of astronauts on the ISS recover a dormant and seemingly innocuous living organism from Mars and got themselves into a world of hurt (especially Ryan Reynolds). While 'Life' is but the latest incarnation of the creature feature in space (or other claustrophobic environments) like 'Alien,' 'DeepStar Six' and 'Leviathan,' it is a suspenseful, tightly plotted and frightening flick made all the more believable by its contemporary setting and strong individual performances. The tentacled starfish-like alien in 'Life' may not be a seven-foot tall xenomorph encased in hardened carapace with sharp teeth and razor-like claws, but it is no less deadly for its survival imperative. Curiosity kills not only cats and in space, no one can hear you say "we're fucked."

Grade: A-

Powerless: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were all the rage in the 1990's. This team of five teenage superheroes in color-coded costumes with chop-socky karate moves and cool transformer-like toys was one of the great Japanese pop cultural imports, spawning a hugely successful TV franchise and two feature films, not to mention all those action figures. Like those pesky Ninja Turtles, now we get a reboot in Saban's 'Power Rangers.' If you've already decided to see this movie because it brings back fond memories of your bygone childhood, I can't stop you, but if you're on the fence I can save you the trouble (and time and money) by telling you to just stay away. Go see 'Life' instead. This latest movie in the PR franchise may be glossy and packed with the cool visuals one would expect considering its $100 million budget, but it is so languid and boring that I was on the verge of falling asleep. The five "chosen" teenagers are a clichéd bunch of misunderstood and angst-ridden rejects out of 'The Breakfast Club,' and although she isn't a bad actress by any measure, Elizabeth Banks had the misfortune of being miscast as one of the worst movie villains in cinematic history.

Grade: C-

Office Slays: In the tradition of 'Battle Royale,' 'Would You Rather?' and 'Saw,' the latest "people forced to do unspeakable things to other people by unknown people who play god" movie is 'The Belko Experiment,' a low budget B-horror movie about a group of office workers in Colombia who suddenly and inexplicably find themselves to be the guinea pigs of a sadistic and bloody "social experiment." The devilish premise is deceptively simple and requires us to suspend our disbelief in no small degree, but once you sign on for this Fangoria and Bloody Disgusting gory ride you may find it to be a rather enjoyable guilty pleasure, even if its ending is a bit predictable.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

It can be said that the latest
Hollywood treatment of King Kong, Jordan Vogt-Roberts’ ‘Kong: Skull Island,’
would not have been possible without the success of ‘Godzilla 2014’ (reviewed
here: link), Gareth Edwards’ reboot of our
beloved Japanese big lizard franchise which went on to gross over $500 million
worldwide.So confident was Legendary
Pictures in the popularity of its newly minted “Monsterverse,”
scheduled to culminate in the battle royale between the ape and lizard (what a
marquee matchup, eh?) in 2020, it shelled out a production budget of $185
million for ‘Skull Island,’ plus another $130 million in ancillary
marketing/advertising costs making it that much harder to turn a profit.

‘Kong: Skull Island’ takes place in
1973 (as the Vietnam War winds down) on Kong’s mythical homeworld, a primeval
“lost world” somewhere in the South Pacific.Members of a shady government program dubbed “Monarch” (John Goodman and
some black dude) organize an expedition onto Skull Island in search of
god-knows-what.With a Huey air cavalry
squadron led by brash and gung-ho Samuel L. Jackson providing muscle, former SAS man-turned-mercenary
Tom Hiddleston as tracker/guide and photojournalist Brie Larson tagging along to record the momentous event for posterity, our
hapless explorers find more than they bargained for in this most unforgiving of
hostile environments.

With nods to ‘Apocalypse Now’
(cue breathtaking sunset backdrop and “Rise of the Valkyries” formation flying
before being punched out of the air by you-know-who) and ‘Jurassic Park’ (yes,
people got devoured by giant reptiles), ‘Skull Island’ can hardly be called
original.Yet despite all that it is an exceedingly
entertaining popcorn B-movie that even the most cynical of viewers will find
difficult not to enjoy.The action comes
hard and fast, the cinematography and visuals are simply gorgeous, and the
Great Ape had never seemed so… human and humane.Whether or not ‘Kong: Skull Island’
ultimately recoups its insanely high budget, it maintained the tradition of
King Kong movie excellence and whetted our appetites for Kong’s highly
anticipated smack-down against the giant radioactive-spawned reptile currently
slated for May 29, 2020 (after said reptile's sequel due out on March 22, 2019, that is).

Monday, March 6, 2017

Since I first saw the trailer of
‘Logan’ set to the mournful melodies and lyrics of Johnny Cash’s "Hurt," I’ve
been impatiently waiting to see it.The
Wolverine trilogy comes to a fitting if somewhat sappy end as director James
Mangold (‘Walk the Line,’ no wonder his choice of song) followed up on his
pretty good second installment (‘The Wolverine’ reviewed here: link) with this even better, and
certainly more memorable, effort that made us all but forget the mess that was
‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ and redeemed the rough-and-tumble Canuck X-Man whom
we all love.Hugh Jackman, in
reprising the feral and animalistic character who can rip you to shreds for the last time over a span of 17 years, put in what may well be his best performance
to date.Well done, bub.

Loosely based on ‘Kick-Ass’
creator Mark Millar’s alternate universe graphic novel ‘Old Man Logan,’ the
film takes place in the bleak dystopian future of 2029, one in which Logan and
Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) are among the last of a dying breed (as in
mutant-kind).Reduced to a shell of a
man eking out a pitiful existence as a drunkard and limo driver, Logan – and the
bedridden and even more pitiable former Professor X whom he’s taking care of
like an ailing father – suddenly find one last worthy purpose in their
meaningless lives to nobly fulfill when a young Mexican girl-experimental
subject named Laura (Dafne Keen) needed their help.

Raw, primal, complex and
unexpectedly dark, ‘Logan’ is the most deeply personal Wolverine movie ever committed
to celluloid.James Howlett never seemed
so flawed, tortured and grappling with his inner demons as he did in this film,
and Hugh Jackman had a lot to do with that.Tonally and stylistically, ‘Logan’ is a different film from anything
we’ve seen in the Marvel milieu, even for one that falls well beyond the
official MCU.It is ‘Wolverine’ by way
of a dusty Sam Peckinpah western combined with a Mad Max chase thriller, a
brutal R-rated bloodbath reveling in its nihilistic excess.Ditching glossy CGI visuals and epic-ness of
scope for a low-fi naturalistic feel, ‘Logan’ is a welcome departure in a genre
that’s become somewhat predictable and stale in its very sameness.

Friday, March 3, 2017

Jordan Peele, MAD TV alum and one
half of the comedic duo from Comedy Central’s ‘Key & Peele,’ is also one
heck of a screenwriter, producer and director.His debut feature (as writer/producer/director), the low budget horror flick
‘Get Out,’ had garnered universal acclaim (an unbelievable 99% "fresh" rating on RT, so take that 'Moonlight' and 'La La Land'!) and
generated a lot of buzz since its release last weekend, not to mention exceeding expectations and earning the
number one spot with $33 million at the box office.Being the jaded horror aficionado that I am and having
been disappointed more often than not by recent efforts in the genre, I just had to see
for myself if ‘Get Out’ truly lives up to its high billing.

The story is simplicity itself.Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is a young
African-American whose relationship with his white girlfriend Rose (Allison
Williams) has reached a steadiness that warranted finally meeting her family,
the outwardly nice Fockers.... I mean Armitages.Concerned
that Rose hadn’t yet told them she's dating a black man, his
reservations were soon put to rest after the warm reception from the loving
family.But things are not as they
initially appear of course.Strange behavior from
the family and the two black servants as well as other guests gradually led Chris to believe that things are very,
very wrong and that he is slowly sinking into a living nightmare from which he must "get out."Just what in tarnation is going on
here???!!!

With no expectations of what the
movie’s about but high expectations from all the hype surrounding it, I
must admit I was pleasantly surprised by what turned out to be an intelligent, funny and genuinely scary movie which also serves as social satire.I am not
exaggerating here in saying that ‘Get Out’ is a masterwork of steadily building
suspense and creeping paranoia the likes of which we haven’t seen in quite awhile.Thanks to this movie, you will never hear the simple sound of a silver spoon stirring in a China teacup quite the same way again.And like all great horror movies, it has a
doozie of a twist near the end that hits us like a pile of bricks.There are shades of
‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ (the 1956 original and the 1978 remake), ‘The
Stepford Wives’ (the original, not the remake) and 'Rosemary's Baby.'That, my friends, is
high praise indeed.

Monday, February 27, 2017

Mike (M.R.) Carey’s "The Girl
with All the Gifts" is one of the better – and most original – zombie
apocalypse novels I’ve read of late, so when I heard that it’s been adapted into
a movie starring Glenn Close and the lovely Gemma Arterton I knew I can only resist watching it with as much success as the undead can decline an all-you-can-eat brain buffet.Unfortunately, foreign
films (in this case British) generally take a bit longer before reaching the
American audience if they do at all, and even when it finally happens these
films typically only get a limited release due to the sheer number of competing
films out there at any given time.

Determined as I was, when I found
out that TGWATG is finally released stateside (only five months after its initial release in England) last weekend I drove 35 miles to
see it at the Laemmle NoHo Theater in North Hollywood, not far from the Dolby
Theater where they held the (somewhat disastrous) Oscars last night.And it was well worth it.First-time director Colm McCarthy and writer
Mike Carey (who wrote the screenplay) hewed closely to the book for the most
part and told the story from the very human and sympathetic viewpoint and
experiences of the protagonist, a young girl named Melanie who (you guessed it) possesses “all
the gifts.”As in the book, the
relationship and special bond between Melanie and her teacher, Miss Justineau
(Arterton), provide the emotional depth and complexity to the story as we follow
them and a few other survivors in their trek across a devastated English
countryside toward a safe haven called Beacon.

As I anticipated, TGWATG is a
taut, riveting zombie apocalypse/survival thriller unlike anything we’ve seen before.It’s a fresh take on the “zombie” viral
outbreak concept and injected a refreshing jolt to a clichéd genre much as
Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’ did back in 2003.The movie also has a certain "Lord of the Flies" element in it that’s in line with
its focus on children as humanity’s future and a shocker of a twist ending.Less expected is the fine performance turned
in by 12-year old newcomer Sennia Nanua as the precocious and very "gifted" girl who may be the
key to our survival, or perhaps the instrument of our very extinction?Grade: A

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Acclaimed Chinese auteur Zhang
Yimou (‘Hero,’ ‘House of Flying Daggers, ‘Curse of the Golden Flower’) takes on
his first bona-fide blockbuster in ‘The Great Wall,’ the $150 million
action-fantasy epic starring Matt Damon, Willem Dafoe, Pedro Pascal and a bunch of
Chinese actors.While it's a certified flop at the US box office critically and commercially, earning a
mere $21 million over the President’s Day weekend, it somewhat mitigated its disappointing performance stateside having already pulled in over $260 million
worldwide ($171 million in China alone).

Damon plays William Garin, a
mercenary who traveled far and wide to the exotic east in search of Black
Powder.Along with his compatriot Tovar
(Pascal), he survives a raid by Khitan bandits only to be captured by Chinese
soldiers garrisoned at the Great Wall after fending off an attack by a
mysterious creature at night.With his
particular set of skills (especially with the bow), William was impressed into
the service of an elite Chinese military order tasked with defending the
famous wall against mythical alien monsters called “Tao Tei,” four-legged
creatures resembling giant Predator Hounds that terrorize China every 60
years. You heard right, it's a generational occurrence.

Combining the epic mythical
fantasy of LOTR and ‘The Hobbit’ with the oriental flair and style of Zhang’s previous
“wuxia” movies, TGW is visually stunning without a doubt.The vibrancy of the Chinese warriors of the
“Nameless Order” ‘color-coded by specialty (Crane Troop, Bear Troop, Eagle
Troop, Deer Troop and Tiger Troop) is a nice touch, and the acrobatic wire-fu
action sequences from the all-female Crane troops are poetry-in-motion.However, as ambitious in scope and visually
impressive as it may be, TGW is nevertheless saddled with familiar trappings, tired
tropes, uninspired storytelling, uneven pacing and lackluster individual performances
(even from the accomplished Damon and Dafoe), making it a bloated effort with style to spare but rather lacking in substance.

‘John Wick,’ 2014’s surprise sleeper
“hit” (get it?) which more than quadrupled its modest $20 million budget at the
box office about an assassin forced out of retirement to exact his brand ofone man vigilante justice against a Russian mob boss (reviewed here: link),
earns a much deserved sequel in ‘John Wick: Chapter 2.’With a bigger budget (twice that of the
original) and a story that ups the ante for our titular anti-hero, JW2 promises
to be even bloodier and badass-ier than its predecessor.And boy, did it deliver the goods!

After leaving death and
destruction in his wake for the death of his beloved puppy, John Wick (Keanu
Reeves) recovered his vintage ’69 Ford Mustang (in a manner of speaking) and settled
down once again to the quiet and peaceful life of a retired legendary
international hitman, to be forgotten by the world and left alone.Of course, that was simply too much to
ask.This time an old “associate” calls
in a debt from his dark past, one which he is bound to honor, and he is thrust
back into the life he so desperately wanted to leave behind.In JW, we learned that there is a universal golden
rule punishable by death that must be followed by all assassins, and that is to
never conduct “business” at the Continental hotel.In JW2, we learn a second equally binding
law, and that is a “marker” must always be honored.

That’s part of what makes JW so
fascinating:Its unique world-building
and portrayal of a secret society of assassins amongst us, as outlandish and incredible
as it may seem.In JW2 we immerse
ourselves in this richly imagined universe even more to the level of near
absurdity (seemingly every other person may be an assassin!), but despite its
contemporary settings and “realism” we do not question it or roll our eyes in
give-me-a-break fashion because the mayhem and carnage inflicted throughout are
so bloody delicious and fun.‘John Wick:
Chapter 3’ anyone?

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

M. Night Shyamalan continues his
impressive comeback which began with 2015’s ‘The Visit’ in his latest
directorial feature ‘Split,’ a twisty psychological chiller that harks back to
his earlier works such as ‘The Sixth Sense,’ Unbreakable’ and ‘Signs.’While this won’t entirely wipe away his later
string of disappointments including ‘The Village,’ ‘Lady in the Water’ and ‘The
Happening,’ the Indian-American former NYU grad proves that he’s still “master
of the Night” when he’s on top of his game.

‘Split’ tells the intriguing
tale of Kevin (James McAvoy in one of his best performances to date) , a
troubled loner with a condition the field of clinical psychology calls
“dissociative identity disorder.”To put
it simply, he has 23 distinct personalities, of which two happen to be dominant.One such identity is a creepy weirdo named
Dennis who stalks young girls.In
the movie's opening scene (and in the trailer) this particular incarnation kidnaps three teenagers,
one of whom is Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy from ‘The Witch’), a disturbed and abused girl herself who engages in a battle of wits
with Kevin's myriad personalities (including a 9-year old boy named "Hedwig") as they manifest themselves in her attempt to get
out alive.

‘Split’ is a masterwork of
psychological terror and suspense.Much
of this is due to McAvoy’s bravura turn as the man with many faces andparticularly his uncanny ability to switch among
the multiple personalities with seemingly effortless ease.Anya Taylor-Joy was also compelling as the
damsel-in-distress whose survival instincts are fueled by an inner strength born out of her own dark
childhood and history, which unfolded through a series of flashbacks.The film reaches its climax in truly frightening
fashion as Kevin’s 24th personality emerge from the depths of his being,
a physiological transformation so primal that made it nothing less than an apotheosis.